After researching into so many architects and artists i felt that i needed to try and find some fashion designers that used Brutalism within their designs. Upon researching i came across Joseph Beuys and his 'Felt Suit' from 1970 and was surprised to discover that it was actualy a piece of art and not fashion which i was looking for. However i still felt that i could gain inspiration from it in terms of its concrete grey colour and also how it has quite a structured look to it due to the thickness of the felt. Both things that i felt i could consider when it came to designing and creating my final piece.
'Felt Suit' 1970.
In 1969, German Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys performed Isolation Unit: Action the dead mouse in collaboration with American artist Terry Fox. The event, conceived as a protest of the Vietnam War, took place in the basement of the Düsseldorf Art Academy where Beuys and Fox were both students. In the part of the performance captured in the accompanying photograph, Beuys, clad in a heavy suit made of felt, holds in his outstretched hand the body of a dead mouse that had been living under his bed.
Felt was of course a significant and recurring material for Beuys, and an integral element of his self-mythology. It was featured in his 1969 installation The Pack at the Neue Galerie in Kassel, in which an army of anthropomorphic sleds armed with rolled felt blankets and flashlights seem to escape from the back of a 1961 Volkswagen van. Suspended above the vehicle, the suit from the Düsseldorf performance now hangs limp and empty.
Beuys later recreated the felt suit from the Düsseldorf performance as a multiple, one of which is now in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Typically displayed high out of the reach of the viewer, the suit is elevated from the realm of the everyday into the transcendent.
there the suit is shown high up in Josephs work 'The Pack (das Rudel), 1969'
Upon looking futher into Brutalism i came across the London Festival of Architecture 2015, where Turner Prize-nominated architecture collective Assemble teamed up with British artist Simon Terrill to create full-size foam replicas of playground designs from the Brutalist era. I found this installation so interesting due to its use of bright colours, something very strange in the brutalist sea of concrete grey. I felt that looking into this would give me inspiration for ways in which i could possiblely add colour into my designs.
Brutalist playground from mid 20th century housing block.
The Brutalist Playground installation fills an entire gallery inside the Royal Institute of British Architects headquarters on Portland Place in central London. The reconstituted foam landscape created by Assemble and Terrill replicates the shapes of concrete objects in playgrounds that were built to accompany British Brutalist housing blocks in the mid-20th century.
Visitors can climb on the pastel pink, blue and green objects, which form stairs, slopes, platforms and a slide, as well as a large disc with a yellow metal balustrade that is elevated at one end. The original playgrounds were largely demolished, but Terrill found archive images in the RIBA's library that inspired the exhibition.
"Simon got in touch with us and the description started around the title, Brutalist Playground, and these images that Simon unearthed from the RIBA archive," Joe Halligan, one of the members of the Assemble collective, told Dezeen.
"These surreal, concrete, Brutalist playgrounds looked very risky."
A lookout platform that extends through the ceiling, offering views out of the gallery's glass roof, is a recreation of part of the playground at the base of the Balfron Tower, one of the only original designs still in situ. The five-metre-wide disc was originally seen in the playground at the Churchill Gardens Estate in Pimlico, and freestanding hexagonal blocks are based on concrete steps from the same location. "Some of the objects are too big for the gallery and that's something we wanted to emphasise – that these original pieces of landscape within these Brutalist estates were huge," explained Halligan. Larger pieces in the installation were created from steel or wood off-site and covered with different densities of the reconstituted foam, which is made by gluing together recycled offcuts from other foam materials. Smaller pieces are solid foam. Recreating the shapes of the playground equipment in another material is partly a reference to the Victorian habit of casting, travelling the world to create plaster casts of important pieces of architecture to display in British collections and museums like the V&A.
"That's almost enough of a gesture to show that these things are important and shouldn't be forgotten," said Halligan. By replicating the shapes in foam – a material commonly found in indoor playgrounds, Assemble and Terrill also intended to raise questions about the way children are encouraged to play today.
"That translation is trying to question whether or not risk in play is a totally bad thing," said Halligan.
"The idea that a child can fall off a tree and hurt themselves and that graze on the knee might last a week, but it might also shape their view or make them learn a little bit about how they balance themselves. And the idea of taking that away, cushioning it and making it soft and kind of dumbing it down for kids, making everything primary colours."
After researching into many other Brutalist achitects i finaly came across the one that designed the building in the picture on the 'Brutalism' sheet on our group brainstorm that orignaly captured my attention, as i just had to look into this amazing building futher.
Habitat 67, is an experimental modular housing complex presented by Moshe Safdie at the 1967 World Expo in Montreal as a vision for the future of cities.
Comprising a three-dimensional landscape of 354 stacked concrete "boxes", Habitat 67 pioneered the combination of two major housing typologies, the urban garden residence and the modular high-rise apartment building.
Moshe Safdie an Israeli-born architect who moved to Canada in the 1950s, first developed the concept as part of his thesis at McGill University in 1961, entitled "A Case for City Living".
Two years later, when the architect was just 23 and starting out his career in the office of Louis Kahn, his former tutor Sandy Van Ginkel suggested he submit his design for the Montreal Expo. It became his first ever built project.
The original masterplan involved over 1,000 residences, alongside shops and a school. This was scaled down to just 158 homes, forming a 12-storey complex located beside the Saint Lawrence River in the centre of the city. By utilising a variety of geometric arrangements, making use of both setbacks and voids, Safdie aimed to create a series of properties with their own identities. Each one featured its own roof garden and could be accessed from an external "street", one of Brutalism's key ideals.
Safdie, who himself believes the project is "a reaction against brutalism", described his design as an attempt at a high-rise village, a way of upsizing from a micro to a mega scale."I think Habitat was important at its time and resonated with the public because it proposed in realised form an alternative to the typology of the conventional apartment house," the architect told Dezeen.
"The public recognised in Habitat the possibility that high-rise living could be more like living in a village and have the quality of life of a house than what they associated with the negatives of apartment housing. While there were many theoretical proposals floating in the air at the time, the fact that we had the opportunity to realise Habitat, and for 50 million people to experience it during Expo as a real and living environment, suggested that this was a possible future reality." Fifteen different housing types were developed. These varied between 60 and 160 square metres, each accommodating between one and four bedrooms. Six monumental elevator pillars were added to offer vertical access, stopping only on every fourth level to try and prevent unnecessary journeys and thus decrease the structure's energy consumption.
To allow the prefabricated construction process to take place on site, a factory was built beside the site to produce the concrete modules, which were to be connected by high-tension rods, steel cables and welding. Safdie believed this to be the most cost-efficient solution, a decision that ultimately backfired with costs spiralling to CAD$22 million, which represented about CAD$140,000 per home. Despite this, the project has remained popular with residents. In 1986 the building was sold to its tenants for CAD$11.5 million – or around CAD$26,250 per residence – by a Quebec businessman, who had bought it from the government for CAD$10 million.
"Everybody knows that Habitat was a money-losing proposition," Fritz Delphine, special projects coordinator for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the agency that ran Habitat, told the New York Times. The newspaper reported that the design of the units, each with several exposed walls, made the building twice as costly to heat as any other building in Montreal.
According to Safdie, many of the original occupants still live in the building, and the architect has also kept a residence for himself there.
"A built fragment of a grander, mixed-use proposal, Habitat's concrete rawness speaks to Brutalism's beton brut – raw concrete – origin, but defies its massive image with a three-dimensional burst of individual module homes," said architect Wendy Kohn, a former colleague of Safdie.
"Unlike Kahn or Corb's elemental, powerful Brutalist monuments, Safdie's Habitat suggests a spontaneous orchestration. Economics and luck dictated its singularity, but Safdie’s subsequent designs for desert, tropical, and compact urban Habitats around the world suggest its aspiration to multiply, adapt, and mutate, rather than stand rooted."
"Habitat constitutes an urban vision of building economically but humanely, expressing individuality, but committed to solving enduring communal needs," she said. After the expo, the architect was commissioned to replicate the design in various locations around the world, from New York to Puerto Rico and Israel, although none of these were ever realised.
I have also included a link to a Tedtalk below of Moshe Safdie talking about some of his work to help explain his ideas and thought process behind his desgins.
Upon researching into Marcel Breuer i came across another of his well know works known as 'The College on a Hill. (pictured below from the frount)
Beginning in the 1950s, NYU began expanding both their downtown and uptown campuses. In 1956, the administration hired renowned modernist architect Marcel Breuer, who had experience working with colleges such as Sarah Lawrence and Vassar, to develop a master plan for the future University Heights. The architect’s avant-garde style differed greatly from the classical design used by Stanford White. Instead of using marble, Breuer opted for concrete, instead of ornate fixtures, the Hungarian chose simplicity. During the 50s and 60s, observers began criticizing classical works for being simply pretty, but not necessarily functional, making Breuer’s aesthetic perfect for the times.
(An Artists rendering of the campus with the proposed new buildings on the south side of campus.)
Breuer’s innovation and eagerness to push boundaries would be an asset for this project. Since parts of the campus drastically changed in gradation, he utilized underground spaces and built enclosed bridges to connect buildings. From 1959-1970, Breuer and his associates Hamilton Smith and Robert F. Gatje, would build 5 new buildings that exuded modernity and transformed the campus.
Completed in 1961, the Julius Silver residence hall could house 600 students. The 7 story building is connected by two “flying” bridges in the middle that lead to the cafeteria and lounge, eliminating the need to build elevators, and therefore save money.
Upon researching into Brutalist architects i came across Marcel Breuer who was originally born in Hungary, but later went on to establish himself in New York, where he opened an office in 1956. It is during this time that he really developed his architectural style. His way of playing with concrete, unarguably heavy and ugly, resulted in vast unusually shaped buildings, some bold and imposing, others light and full of movement.
Marcel Breuer started with designing private homes, and went on to design churches and museums. The Robinson house is an example of his most innovative binuclear houses. ''The landscape shows through the building… (But) I don’t think that the two need mix…'' Breuer commented in an interview at that time.
Twelve of Breuer’s architectural designs are showcased, including the Church of St Francis of Sales, Muskegon, Michigan (USA). One of the architect’s most acclaimed designs, the building’s tall fluid, twisting lines marked the history of architecture as this unprecedented style had never been seen before. Hedrich Blessing’s black and white shot of the building shows off its fluid twisting curves that bring life and weightlessness to the construction. In contrast, the iconic New York Witney Museum of American Art is imposing and masculine in its angular lines. Another of his most emblematic designs includes Saint John Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota (USA). Audacious in its monumentality and grotesque form, the building has undoubtedly marked the history of architecture.
Below i decided to include one of his most well known, and one of my favourite of his buildings the 'Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1964-1966) as i feel that the way his stepped the frount of the building and used unquie shaped windows really transforms just a plain concrete block into a archituriral piece of art.
Moving on from my previous post, and after coming across the Led Zepplin song i was inspired to try and see if i could find any songs that were about Brutalism or that featured examples of it in there videos. Although maybe a strange idea ( i mean who would write a song about concrete buildings?) to my surprise i came across this website which had a whole artical about them.
looking through all of the songs and having a listen i found the frist video, Metronomy’s ‘Month of Sundays’ to be my favourtie as i quite liked the song and felt that the video captured Brutalism in a fun and exciting way. This video was directed by Callum Cooper and captures the Barbican Estate in kaleidoscopic form, with the camera spinning endlessly, creating a dizzying portrait of the building’s shapes and textures. (see video below)
Another video from the artical which i found interesting was The Chemical Brothers 'Go' were seven dancers march through a modernist Parisian paradisse that wasdirected by Michel Gondry. Many of the towers here, in the city’s Front-de-Seine area, were built in the 1970s under plans conceived by architects Raymond Lopez and Henry Pottier. This video brings to life the shapes, patterns and concrete of this continental Brutalist wonderland.
I also felt that the last video in this artical, Omi Palone 'Architecture' perfectly showcased many brutalist buildings in a rather beautiful way that was more simple then the chemical bothers 'Go' video. ( see Omi Palone 'Architecture' below)
In an atempt to gain more information about Brutalism i decided to take a trip to my local libary to see if they had any books that could be on use. After spending about 20 mintues just finding the architure section i then spent another 10 trying to find a book on it and ended up only coming across one book that sort of had one page that i thought could be of use. Anyway this is the book below.
From the cover i felt quite optermistic as it looked like it would be filled with lots of concrete uglyiness and interesting modern buildings that would be useful for my research. however as they say 'never judge a book by its cover' because this didnt live up to my hopes as i only came across this one page with a picture of a building called 'Stairway to Heaven'.
Although after getting home and trying to research into this building to find out more i seemed to only be able to find one website that talked about a book that was in french a song by Led Zeppelin with the same name (which ill include below for any fans). Overall this was not the most successful trip to say the least.
After watching episode 2 of 'Bright lighs, Brilliant minds, a tale a 3 citys' i came across the French Brutalist building 'Couvent Sainte Marie de la Tourette' designed by Le Corbusier.
Exterior view, courtyard.
This building i found to be the most interesting out of all of his work as i felt it captured the style of Brutalism the best with its bold structure made from reinforced concrete. Situated in Eveux, Rhône, France and built between 1957-1961 this building has a very harsh feeling to it with its high walls and many strange layers of shapes which i feel can be best seen in this video captured by a student from Mackintosh school of architure in 2013 on a study trip below.
(warning, its not the most exciting video in the world but i feel it captures the buildings most intresting parts at 3:58 and around 5 mintues which show a certain corner of the building that looks like it has a strange concrete triangle plopped on it)
After speaking to my tutors about my chosen theme 'Brutalism' i was told by my tutor Kath (Hi Kath if your reading this) to watch episode 2 of the 3 part documentary 'Bright lights, Brilliant minds, a tale of 3 citys'. This episode in particular was titled 'Paris' and after searching for quite some time i finaly discovered that it was still on Youtube but in four 15 mintue long parts. So i grabbed a pen and paper and sat down to watch part one in the hope of ending up with lots of useful notes. However as part one came to an end, the word Brutalism had'nt been mentioned once. so moving onto part 2 in the hope that something of interest would come along i was again left with a blank piece of paper, and to my sadness part 3 was exactly the same. At this point after watching 45 mintues of people talking about paris i began to question wether this was just a waste of time, however after deciding that i should just carry on with part 4 ( i had come this fair so i thought i might as well) i began to gain hope as within the last 10 mintues it started to move onto the topic of buildings. With 5 mintues to go, and to my delight this epiosde finaly became of use as it started to talk about modernist buildings and the idea behind the start of Brutalism with it explaining how architects of the time took inspiration from the clean, smooth lines of the new machionary that was starting to make an apperance within factories.
One man in particular seemed to pop up as the main leader of this movement, Swiss architect Le Corbusier. With a love for open plan living, walls of glass with no doors, and funcional layouts he had a vision of transforming Paris by tearing down all of its old buildings in the way for a new modern Paris that would transform it into a clean and heathly city saving it from crumbling away. However his plans were way ahead of there time, and with hardly anyone else sharing his vision Paris remind the old beautiful and romantic city that its known for.
Although some of his building of the time, such as this one i feel are actully quite beautiful.
If you fancy wacthing this episode and finding out more about Le Corbusier's plans for Paris then you can do so below.
(skip to about 10 mintues in to find the part ive been talking about)
To put it simply, Brutalism is a style with an emphasis on materials, textures and construction, producing highly expressive forms.
Consider Brutalism as architecture in the raw, with an emphasis on materials, textures and construction, producing highly expressive forms. Seen in the work of Le Corbusier from the late 1940s with the Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, the term Brutalism was first used in England by the architectural historian Reyner Banham in 1954.It referred to the work of Alison and Peter Smithson’s school at Hunstanton in Norfolk because of its uncompromising approach to the display of structure and services, albeit in a steel building rather than reinforced concrete.
Also called New Brutalism, it encouraged the use of beton brut (raw concrete), in which patterns created by wooden shuttering are replicated through boardmarking, as can be seen in the work of Denys Lasdun, or where the aggregate is bush or pick-hammered, as at the Barbican Estate in London. Scale was important and the style is characterised by massive concrete shapes colliding abruptly, while service ducts and ventilation towers are overtly displayed.
What to look for in a Brutalist building:
Rough unfinished surfaces
Unusual shapes
Heavy-looking materials
Massive forms
Small windows in relation to the other parts
And lots of concrete
Basically just big concrete buildings like these below.
Tricorn Shopping Centre, Portsmouth, 1965.
Keeling House, Bethnal Green, London, 1959.
Ulster Museum extension, Belfast, 1972.
Although ugly to some (and maybe even you reading this) i however find a unusal beauty in the simple shapes and forms of these buildings and find them really refreashing in style. So much so that ive decided to base my whole project around them.
After looking and reading through the gaint brainstorm we created as a group we then had to choose as many words as we wanted to base our research and project around. Although picking about five to begin with, i decided to narrow it down to just one to keep it simple. In the end my chosen word was..
For some reason this design movement stood out to me due to its strange name and the interesting picture of a cool futeristic style building which i felt could be aplyed to my chosen area of fashion through shape and structure. But what is Brutalism?
To start this project off we were given a brief tilted 'Self Initiated'. After reading through the brief i realised that this project was going to be one were we had to come up with our own project and research based upon a certain art or design style, movement or designer. We then got presented with a table full of lots of words on strips of paper and told we had to go off and research as many as we could to find out what they ment and print a definition and examples of the word to create a gaint brainstorm as a group. The result of our work is below.
The full brainstorm in all its glory.
(we had two sheets with ART on one and DESIGN on the other, which we then had to decied wether the words were conected to one or the other and conect them with string)
As the brainstorm grew we had to add a 'MORE ART' sign to fit everything on.
And for some reason we ended up with a picture of a duck and Gary Lineker's face?
"Simon got in touch with us and the description started around the title, Brutalist Playground, and these images that Simon unearthed from the RIBA archive," Joe Halligan, one of the members of the Assemble collective, told Dezeen.
Safdie, who himself believes the project is "a reaction against brutalism", described his design as an attempt at a high-rise village, a way of upsizing from a micro to a mega scale."I think Habitat was important at its time and resonated with the public because it proposed in realised form an alternative to the typology of the conventional apartment house," the architect told Dezeen.
From the cover i felt quite optermistic as it looked like it would be filled with lots of concrete uglyiness and interesting modern buildings that would be useful for my research. however as they say 'never judge a book by its cover' because this didnt live up to my hopes as i only came across this one page with a picture of a building called 'Stairway to Heaven'.
